Fallen Stars
by therunner
Summary: A tale following 5 military cadets, and the disaster which befouls them, in a futuristic Stargate universe.
1. Introduction

Okay. Before I start I think I need to give a little introduction into my novel. It is a mixture of many other fanfics such as Stagate Destiny, Gateworld fleets and others.

The year is 2102. The Ori have been driven back and destroyed. The United Nations of Earth, UNE, has expanded into a huge empire. After the Stargate program was made public in 2010, and became the International Stargate Command, ISGC, a sudden expansion period too place. In the next 50 years dozens of planet were colonized. The human population went into the hundreds of billions and the UNE became a superpower in the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies. A human design of the Atlantis class city ship made this hugely possible and large metropolises rose on many planets surfaces.

The Alliance was formed. All races of the twin galaxies that wished to joined the Alliance. Jaffa, Asgard, Jotnar, Gadmeer, all humans and any other race which wanted to join did. The Alliance became the power in the galaxy.

Enemies of this Alliance quickly found themselves defeated and even the Wraith backed down, although they still control large areas of the Pegasus Galaxy.

Our story follows the tale of 5 military cadets, training on an asteroid base in the Milky Way, and the disasters which befoul them.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


	2. Chapter 1 Training

The F-312 screamed through the asteroid field. Its four wingmen followed in formation. The F-312 was the latest fighter from the forges of Mars. It was similar to the old F-302s but it had much stronger armour, a short range hyperdrive, and had wings which could be retracted to form an arrowhead shaped craft. Dodging through the field, scanners overloaded with information. "Tighten up, Blue Three," Brant spoke down his microphone. The fighter followed. "Sir, I'm picking up some sort of weird energy signature," Blue Two crackled through the quiet. Brant brought up his HUD. It showed seven blips on the fringes of the asteroid field. "Okay Blue Squadron, arm railguns and prepare rockets for firing." The fighter squadron continued their complicated way through the asteroids.

Colonel Pickard looked down at his handheld console. All five of the cadets had slightly raised BPs and heart rates. He was standing on a low balcony overlooking a set of virtual simulators which were hooked up to his charges. A screen behind him showed the views of all five of the cadets inside the reality. "Send the contacts in, Sergeant."

"Yessir!"

As the F-312s left the asteroid field, seven Wraith Darts powered weapons and dived into the fray. "Darts! Engage in attack pattern Delta," Brant ordered to his team. The fighters instantly split up and the fight began. Brant veered upwards and almost immediately locked on to a contact. Hitting the trigger his F-312 let rip a stream of railgun shots. He hit the nose and the craft exploded in a fantastic ball of plasma. A pinging sound told him that two of the other Darts had targeted him. As they began firing he cut his engine and fired his reverse thrusters. In an instant he was behind the Darts and launched a rocket into the back of one. The other nosedived out of his line of sight. Brant pulled away knowing never to stick to a target. Otherwise you quickly became a target.

_Impressive_ thought Colonel Pickard, _they have already destroyed five of the Darts. And two of the kills came from cadet 5-12. _"Sergeant, send in program 311176 please." _This aught to be interesting._

The last of the Darts was consumed in flame. "Form up, Blue," said Brant. The fighters formed an arrowhead formation and sped off into open space. Suddenly half his HUD was filled with contacts. "Scatter! Multiple contacts on inbound vectors!" As he pushed his controls down, Brant caught a glimpse of dozens of Darts and a cruiser. "Blue Two, Blue Three, cover me and the others. We are to head for the cruiser. Aim for the hanger bays and engines." A chorus of 'yessir's answered him. Firing his railguns through the mist of Darts, rewarded with several explosions, he fired his engines right up. The team formed up with the covering fighters ahead of the designated 'cruiser attackers'. "Sir, I've been hit……losing…….backing out sir!" That made Brant stiffen. It was Blue Four, she was hit. "All craft proceed with mission. I'm going to help out Abi." He swung his ship around, just in time to see Blue Four's fighter be hit and fall apart in flame. _Damn it! _Brant thought. With that he turned round to face the cruiser. As he tried to catch up with his team he saw a group of Darts dive down upon the formation. All three fighters exploded. Warning lights flashed on in his controls. Brant looked round to see a burning Dart smash into his cockpit.

A flash of pain ripped through Brant's body. His eyes opened and he gasped sharply. Brant tore off the neural connections on his head and body and stepped from his simulator. It was shaped like the cockpit of an F-312. He saw the rest of his team stepping from their simulators. Looking up he saw his commander, Colonel Pickard, with a smile under his harsh face. The colonel walked through the door off the balcony and disappeared. "Damn it we nearly got the cruiser that time!" said his wingman, Sam. He was smiling with sweat dripping down his forehead. Those simulators took a lot out of you. "I know but we'll get there next time!"Abi walked up, "and next time don't come back for me Brant, continue with the mission."

"Ye ye. I know. But we never leave one behind!"Brant said with enthusiasm. He looked at his team members. There was him, the wing leader, Sam, a hulking heavy weapons specialist, Eve, the quiet martial arts and sniper expert and Abi, the scientific fighter pilot ace. They were the human component of the team. Then there was Fasy, or Faseather, who was a Wayfarer. They had two tail like tentacles coming out of the back of their heads and had no hair whatsoever. They had survived the Gou'ald domination by building a fleet of ships and abandoning their home planet. They had now settled again and were a growing race. For a team of eighteen year olds they were pretty diverse. They were part of the Marine Corps training program. It had been designed to offer a tactical advantage to UNE forces. They were both pilots and soldiers. Brant and his team, Blue team, had joined the program two years ago and were nearing the end of their training.

As the team dried off, happy with their efforts today, an explosion shook the station, which was built into a large asteroid.


	3. Chapter 2 Problems

Another chapter.

Reviews would be appreciated.

Brant and the rest of Blue Team charged out of the simulator room and down the many corridors, similar to the corridors on UNE ships, which they knew like the back of their hands, towards the source of the explosion. As they sped past windows that usually showed parts of the asteroid, station and the expanse of space, they saw debris tumbling in the vacuum and several bodies being torn apart by the zero-pressure. "Shit! One of the reactors must have overloaded. It came from the fighter bay!" Fasy cried out. Blue Team neared the hanger bay and saw a large crowd of people. "What's happening?" asked Abi to a female engineer who looked like she had just come out of the shower. "I'm not sure but apparently the engines in one of the F-312s exploded and opened the blast doors into space. The shield is up now but everyone in there is dead," said the grey clad engineer solemnly. The alarm was still going on and many of the crowd, being engineers with friends who had just died, were desperate for answers. As if in response to this, a Staff Sergeant walked up. "We are looking for the cause of the problem now. You are all ordered by the Station Commander to return to your quarters. Dismissed!"

Brant fell into his pillow. Turning his head to face the ceiling he collapsed into thought. What had happened? Was I an accident? Or sabotage? That sent a chill down his spine. If it was who had done it? And why? With these questions in his mind he fell asleep, tired by his training.

The door was smashed heavily down as several fully armed Marines charged into Brant's room. He awoke with a start to find five assault rifles pointed at his head. "What's …"he started.

"Hands on your head! Hands on your head!" shouted the Marine closest to him. Brant tried to speak and found the butt of an assault rifle hitting the bridge of your nose is exceptionally painful. As he descended into unconsciousness another question came to his mind, what have I done?

When Brant came around he found himself in a room with the rest of his team. All of them were floating between two consoles, one on the ceiling and one on the floor, with metal bands around their arms and legs. These emanated blue streaks of energy and kept them afloat. Brant was the only one conscious. It seemed the rest of his team had also struggled. The cell door opened before Brant could speak and try to awake them. The Station Commander and Colonel Pickard walked in. They both wore full dress uniform and looked very sad indeed. "Why did you do it?"asked the colonel.

"Do what?"replied Brant. He felt a sharp electric shock pass through him and as his team jolted awake he knew it had got them to. "Plant the bomb under the F-312," the commander joined the interrogation. "What!" cried Eve, "we didn't do anything like that!"

"Well the security camera footage tells a different story." Colonel Pickard hit a control and a holographic screen opened in front of Blue Team. Hitting a different control, a recording that was clearly security camera footage began playing. It showed Blue Team entering the hanger bay and moving slowly towards the F-312s. The team were clad in black overalls but wore no head coverings. As they neared one of the fighters, Eve, or what appeared to be Eve, produced a small device, reached under the engine, and laid the device. The team then left the hanger. Pickard fast forwarded for a few hours until seconds before the explosion. Brant watched in horror as an engineer picked up the bomb and it exploded in his face. Because the fighter was near to the blast doors it rent them apart and the twenty engineers in the hanger were swept into space along with anything not battered down. Several seconds later, a yellowy shield covered up the hole to the stars.

Pickard rewinded the recording till it showed the team laying the bomb. Blue Team stared at it in shock. "So," said the commander, "why are twenty of my engineers dead and who told you to do this!" On the end of his sentence he punched Sam in the face. With a crunch, Sam's nose broke and blood began to pour down his face. "Don't worry. Head wounds bleed a lot," the commander said as he turned and left the room, "Question them Colonel, I want answers."

More then three hours later, with the whole team lying limb above the floor in their cell, Colonel Pickard reported to his commander. "Sir, we have gotten nothing from them. They are denying any responsibility." The commander turned from looking out of the window in the station command bridge. It was very similar to the ship like bridges except for the fact that it was twice the size and had many more stations. It also had no 'captain's chair'. "In that case, we will take them to the military courts. How long till one can be adjourned.?"

The colonel replied, "well we need to get a proper military judge in so about four days. Maybe five."

"Get it done, colonel."

"Yessir." The commander turned back to the view of the large asteroid field. He was fuming with wrath for the loss of his valued engineers. But he was confused. Despite the overriding evidence, the cadets would not own up. Turning to the communication station he said to the ensign operating it, "open a channel to Eridani Epsilon, on encoding frequency 1935." The ensign deftly moved her fingers and looked up. "We're receiving acknowledgement. Video feed." A hologram screen opened and there stood a black man, dressed in lab clothing with glasses on his forehead, "What do you want this time Ken?"

"I have some recordings which I am not sure is completely genuine. I need you to check it out for me."

"Okay patch it through. I'll get back to you in four days. I should be done by then." The hologram closed and the commander strode out of the bridge.

"I don't think we're going to get out of this one Eve," said Fasy. Sam turned to him and suggested, "we could try to escape." Abi looked at him in shock.

"Escape! To what exactly? A life of living in the undercities of Earth, Ares or maybe an agriworld like Harvest? Would you be able to live a life of secrecy?" she angrily responded. Sam faced her.

"Look at our options then. Best case scenario, somehow we aren't charged with the bomb. We would still be expelled from the program, the military and probably any job on the core worlds. Worst case scenario, it's a unanimous guilty call and we are given the death penalty for mass murder. Think of it that way!" Abi looked down to her feet.

"Okay, I was wrong. How do we escape?

Brant was about to pipe in how hopeless the situation was when the cell doors slid open and Green Team walked in. Green Team were another Marine cadet squad who had formed a close bond with Blue Team. Their team leader, Harrison, took a step forward and put a small circular pad beneath each of Blue Team's hovering forms. "What are you doing Harrison?"asked Eve, "you could be arrested!"

"We don't believe you planted the bomb. These are holopads. When activated they will show representations of you in the positions you are now."

"What about the cameras? They will have seen you by now," inquired Brant. Yolanda, another member of Green Team answered him, "we stole some of that injection stuff. We brought some for you to." With that she produced some needles and without a doubt plunged them into Blue Team's arms. The liquid was a mixture of nanobytes which hid someone from any sensor or camera. "I suggest you activate the pads now," said Fasy. Harrison hit a remote and the holograms activated. Green Team then stepped forward and unlocked the metal bands keeping Blue Team in the air. "We stole the key from the security room!" said Yolanda, "We've done what we can, but we do not wish to be expelled from the program too. Good luck." The two teams said their goodbyes before Green Team left the cell. Brant and his team gathered round. "Okay. Escape. I suggest we steal a Rhino and get out of here. We can all fit on one and pilot one so that's a good choice. But we'll need supplies" suggested Brant. "I'll get my personal items, as we all should, then I'll get some food and drink," whispered Sam. Brant nodded and gave out other jobs, "we all get our personal effects then Sam you get the food, Eve head for the Rhino and bluff your way in, Abi get the hanger bay doors ready to open, Fasy get any med supplies you can get your hands on, and I'll get a bot and head for the armory. Let's go! Meet at the Rhino in fifteen minutes." They all charged off on their missions. Blue Team was bugging out.


	4. Chapter 3 Escape

Sorry for the delay. I've been a bit busy recently but I'm back on track again.

Brant ran from the cell towards his quarters. As he ran thoughts rushed through his head. _My family! What will they do? What will they be told?_ He traversed the corridors at pace. Turning a corner he was met by a tech from the simulator room. Recognition flashed across the technician's face. "It's…you!" he cried. Brant immediately slugged the man across the face, "sorry," Brant mumbled as the tech fell unconscious to the ground. He continued to his quarters. Once there he picked up a duffel bag and stuffed it with clothes and treasured possessions. A family photo from his holiday to a resort on terraformed Mars, several memory chips with data from all sources, and finally his grandfather's pipe. Lighting a combustible while on duty was prohibited and Brant didn't smoke but it reminded him of home. With the duffel bag in hand he rushed towards an armory.

There he slid his IdenChip into the scanner and the door opened. He was lucky. The security team had yet to block out his code. The door slid open and revealed the room behind. It was large, about twenty meters deep and ten wide. Along one wall was a rack of different types of battle rifles, and on the smaller walls were heavy weapons and pistols. The centre of the room was dominated by lots of crates full of ammunition. Several strobes of lighting were attached to the ceiling. On the final wall was a marvel of human science. After years of research, the boffins at Fleet Command Science had finally made real robots. Artificial intelligence that could be controlled. On the wall was the result. Ten robots, one and a half meters tall, with large bodies and three-clawed arms. Brant walked up to the control panel next to one and once more entered his IdenChip into the slit. The small screen, which was next to the slit, lit up and asked for a password. Brant entered his code and was in. He hit the on command on the touch screen. The robot came to life. It's eyes lit up blue and it stepped from the rack. "What do you command, sir?"it said flatly. Brant quickly tapped in an inventory list onto his touch pad. The robot, designation BR-736, moved off to collect the items. It took ten minutes to gather the equipment. During that time Brant fidgeted uncontrollably. Finally, the bot chimed, "I am done, sir," and hefted the final crate onto a two tracked sled. They took off out of the armory, Brant in the lead controlling the sled and BR-736 following.

The hanger door opened and Brant stepped in. This hanger was much larger than the one that had been bombed and could hold thirty-six fighters and six Rhinos inside. A Rhino was the human-asgard hybrid version of an Alkesh. It had the basic shape of an Alkesh but was slightly smaller, faster and was better armed. It had two plasma cannons on the front, a railgun in the place of the staff cannons and several missile pods. As Brant strode towards the Rhino with Eve in front, alarms began to blare and Fasy charged into the hanger. "I had to knock out a Marine! Quick they're behind me," he cried. In true style, a squad of five Marines armed with Intar weapons followed. Brant made it into the Rhino and Eve prepared to raise the ramp. Abi and Sam were already inside. They both nodded to signal they had been successful. Through the viewscreen, Brant saw Fasy grow near to the Rhino. He could only watch as one of the Marines took aim and let loose a burst of orange flares. Fasy fell in pain and the Marines surrounded him. Eve sped towards him and Brant raced down the ramp off the Rhino. The Marines turned and saw Eve zooming towards them. She leapt into the air and launched a flying kick straight into the head of the first. With a twirl she kicked the second in the groin. As he hunched over in pain, Eve delivered an uppercut to another Marine. But in doing so she opened her back to the other two Marines. They loosed a flurry of Intar fire and Eve slipped into unconsciousness. Brant charged at the Marines seeing the situation worsen by the second. He dodged the first few flares and then he was in close. The Marines turned their weapons around to deliver hits with the butts of their weapons. Brant thrust his fist into the belly of one and used his momentum to fly a two footed kick at the final Marine. As he crumpled, Brant picked up one of Fasy's and one of Eve's hands and dragged them back to the Rhino. The alarms were still going and now more Marines and other security teams were coming into the hanger. Intar blasts filled the air but by some chance Brant made it back to the Rhino were Sam and Abi helped him with Fasy and Eve. "Sam get us outta here, now!" he ordered. Sam complied and ran toward the bridge. It was a smaller version of a Daedalus bridge and Sam jumped into the helmsman's seat.

Colonel Pickard ran into the hanger as the Rhino powered up it's engines. He immediately raised his pistol and fired the .45 caliber rounds. It had no effect though. The hanger doors began to edge open. Pickard's heart rose in his throat. Then he gasped. The shields were already up so the hanger was saved from decompression. _Those cadets want no more deaths on their hands._ That put his mind racing that they might not have been responsible for the bomb. As the Rhino left the hanger, the colonel put his head in his hands and wept.


	5. Chapter 4 Stop them!

**Authors note: **_7 League Boots-_ I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying the story so far. And yes, you will find out about all the individual talents of the characters and races involved.

_Burning __Klouds__-_Will, glad to see you on here and kind of enjoying this. It will improve(hopefully) and the typos are just me trying to type quickly.

**In a general note I would just like to say firstly sorry for the short chapters, I am yet to get used to the size of the website. However the chapters will vary but not get too long. **

**Also this story does depend a lot on the continued reading and please keep reviews coming. All critique is welcomed. **

**Now to the story.**** Enjoy.**

The Rhino sped out of the hanger bay, out into the asteroid field. As it dodged bits of rock as big as mountains and burst through clouds of microscopic dust, Sam activated the ship's internal communications. His voice echoed around the under-manned ship, "Brant, are you and the others okay?"

Down in the lower deck of the Rhino, Abi and Brant attempted to arouse the unconscious Fasy and Eve. Neither had serious injuries but Fasy had a nasty burn covering his right cheek. Pus boiled out of it as Abi dabbed at it to help. Brant turned Eve over and was shocked when her eyes opened suddenly. She abruptly sat up. "Did we escape?" she blurted out almost to fast for Brant to register.

"Yes," Brant said, "we made it."

"Good for a second there I thought we were doomed."

_"Brant, are you and the others okay?"_ came a voice loudly over the intercom. Brant stared Eve in the eye before turning to Abi and Fasy, who lay motionless on the floor.

"Sam, this is Abi,"she replied, "Eve has come round and me and Brant are fine. But Fasy has reacted badly to the Intar blast and has minor burns as well as still being unconscious." With that she hooked her hands under his armpits and dragged the heavy Wayfarer towards the medical bay.

"Eve, go and help Abi. I'm heading to the bridge," ordered Brant as he jogged down a corridor.

The Dreadnought class ship, _Ares_ sat drifting in space. It was in a slingshot orbit around the nearest planet to the asteroid base. It had just delivered supplies and was heading for a clear hyperspace route vector when the base tuned in and the _Ares_ was ordered to disable a renegade ship. It supposedly contained escaping prisoners. Captain Greenwich couldn't help but feel skepticism at the thought of prisoners in a military training camp. He had his orders however. Sat in the command chair of the _Ares_ he stared out of the viewscreen towards the asteroid field. It stretched on for hundreds of kilometers in all directions and the base itself was just on the edge of it. He could see that several F-312s had been launched to hunt down the Rhino. "Lieutenant, where is the Rhino?" he asked the woman in the seat to his left. She tapped several areas on the touchscreen of her console before answering.

"Sir, it is still in the asteroid field and seems to be heading deeper into it." Greenwich rubbed his chin. He looked around the bridge under his command. It was bigger than those on a Daedalus class ship but much smaller than the base's command. It had a navigation map on the middle of the slightly risen island behind his seat. To the side of the back of the bridge were two more consoles. From all these positions, men and women looked to him for leadership. They rose and fell with him.

"Scramble fighters and cover their most likely exit vector, helmsman."

"Yessir," replied the experienced man at the helm. The dreadnought fired it's engines and sped off to the left of the base. The UNE Dreadnought was a ship twice the size of a Prometheus Science vessel. It had a thick long front with the standard UNE front face. It also had a similar rear to other UNE vessels, like the Prometheus. At the very front was a reverse engineered Ori beam weapon. Other armament included Asgard plasma turrets and anti-fighter railguns. It had Ancient reverse engineered combat drones and some of the most powerful ship based shielding. All in all, the Dreadnought was the UNE's powerhouse. Deployed all over the frontier colonies and in the Pegasus against the Wraith it had a reputation for destroying anything. Why a dreadnought had been sent to a training base was a mystery to Greenwich. But he took his orders seriously. And maybe he was here for the very reason of chasing down this renegade craft. "Sir," snapped the helmsman with precision, "the Rhino is leaving the asteroid field. Fighters are accelerating to engage."

Brant leapt up a flight of stair to the deck upon which the bridge was located. As he charged down the corridor, he was suddenly thrown across the ship by an explosion. "Sam! What was that?!" he yelled down the radio.

"Brant, I just left the asteroids to get into hyperspace but there were fighters waiting for us and…..Brant get up here now!" Sam shouted. Brant picked himself up and entered the bridge. Sparks flew about the room and Sam yanked the manual flight joysticks. The Rhino fell into a steep dive. "There is a dreadnought here," said Sam pointing to the large ship in the viewscreen as it sped nearer very quickly, "there are also fourteen fighters closing in. It was one of them that hit us. Our shield deflected it though."

"How long till we can enter hyperspace?" asked Brant. They needed to get out of here. Fast.

"The computer needs one hundred and three seconds to calculate for a successful entry," he paused before continuing, "they'll have us by then, sir."

The Rhino dived in a straight plummet down from the base. The fighters followed and several let loose some missiles, which immediately followed the Rhino. It suddenly jigged to one side and the missiles flew past, than they turned and tracked the Rhino. Whilst watching this, Captain Greenwich leaned forward as the _Ares_ plowed through space. He was amazed at the show of skill the pilot of the transport was showing. He turned to face the ensign mastering the sensors. "How many are aboard?" he asked.

"There are four humans and a Wayfarer, sir," replyed the man.

"Prepare to fire an EMP pulse towards the Rhino and order the pilots to disable the engines when it goes offline," Greenwich said. As he said this however, the Rhino pulled a sudden turn and accelerated towards the bridge of the dreadnought. "Shields to full power, NOW!"

"Sam, I have a plan. Hand me the controls and go and tell Eve and Abi to buckle down," murmured Brant. Sam released the controls and charged off to the medical bay.

"Give me thirty seconds to do it," Sam answered. Brant took a seat and continued the dogfight. The controls felt heavy in this large ship and beads of sweat ran down his forehead. This plan would either work, or kill them all. With that he yanked the controls and did a loop towards the gigantic dreadnought in his screen.

The Rhino sped over the neck of the dreadnought and its railgun slung beneath began to pepper the shields of the ship. In seconds, Brant was on a direct collision course for the bridge. He tilted the Rhino so that it was side on to the bridge and cut the engines. A jolt passed through the ship and Brant was saved by his buckle which held him against the seat. He redirected all power to the hyperdrive. His course in front of the bridge stopped the fighters firing for fear of friendly fire and the ship was obviously still shocked by the move. The Rhino slipped between the narrow gap between the bridge and a sensor node and Brant hit the hyperdrive engines.

Greenwich could only watch as the ship headed for his bridge. The fighters were not firing and the enraged captain was screaming down the comms, "fire you fools! Don't let them escape!" But it was too late, the Rhino's hyperdrive shone bright blue and it vanished into the swirling blue vortex of an opened hyperspace window.


End file.
